Mixed reactions have trailed the statement by the Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, which the federal government plans to re-introduce toll plazas on federal highways across the country. He stated this at press briefing of State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on October 2, 2019 after the day’s Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari. According to Fashola, although toll plazas had been scrapped under a government policy during the Obasanjo presidency about 15 years ago, he had argued that ‘’there is no law that prohibits tolls in Nigeria today’’. He had declared: ‘’we expect to return toll plazas, we have concluded their designs’’.
Roads are major arteries for economic development and social interaction and therefore constitute critical infrastructure in national development planning. Regrettably, virtually all roads across the country, particularly interstate roads, are in such deplorable condition such that travelling within the country is a nightmare. Two major reasons for this state of affairs are the poor standard of roads constructed, compounded by lack of remedial maintenance culture to sustain such roads, creating situations where roads collapse in less than five years of their construction as against international standard of 30-year life span for well constructed roads. Toll plazas are responses to creating a revenue pool for regular road maintenance for all-year happy motoring. But the Nigerian experience has largely been a disaster as toll plazas, first established in 1978 during Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo’s military rule, had become cesspool of corruption where revenue generated were a pittance of N63 million daily that was grossly inadequate to effect needed repairs of the highways.
The toll plazas had also degenerated to dilapidated hulks. This sorry state must have informed President Obasanjo’s decision to scrap tolling on federal roads in 2004 and got the toll plazas demolished. We view the action as precipitate, ill-conceived and an overkill considering the economic potentials of the toll plazas, if properly managed while they also offered rest points for weary travelers by providing social facilities, including accommodation and vehicular repair services, in settlement clusters which grew around the toll plazas.
We take cognizance of arguments against the re-introduction of toll plazas on federal highways, especially given the dilapidated conditions of many of the roads and prevailing harsh economic conditions. It is even apparent that Minister Fashola may be having a re-think given the clarification offered by the Special Adviser on Communication in the Ministry of Works and Housing, Mr. Hakeem Bello, on October 5, 2019 to the effect that the minister did not make a policy statement and that re-introduction of toll plazas is not imminent. We consider this a mere attempt to blunt the vociferous criticisms which have trailed the kite flying about return of toll plazas. But we recall that this is an obvious pet project of the minister as he had told a National Assembly committee in November 2017 of a plan to re-introduce toll plazas in almost exactly the same words. This is indicative of the lack of think-through that often afflict government efforts at addressing identified problems, with the consequence of running into a brick-wall of opposition.
Toll plazas have been operated successfully in many countries, including Mexico and the U.S. We believe that in spite of the situational challenges arising from the Nigerian factors of corruption and shoddy work, toll plazas can also be successfully operated in the country by adopting a holistic approach involving private concessionaires, the National Assembly and association of professional highway engineers. Re-introduction of the toll plazas should start with the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, on completion of its reconstruction, and operated by three private concessionaires for the old toll plazas at Lagos, Ogere and Ibadan, each with contractual obligations to maintain specific sections of the expressway. To ensure high quality of the on-going reconstruction of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, we suggest certificate of job completion for the contractors must be endorsed by the Nigerian Institution of Highway Engineers as quality control mechanism. Poor quality of road construction, aided by corruption in the job completion certification process, has been the bane of road projects in Nigeria. A Lagos-Ibadan expressway constructed to international best practices standard will provide years of minimum repair relief for toll concessionaires as well as serve as a template for other federal roads under construction. Weigh bridges on tolled roads must be functional to enforce compliance with excessive axle load regulations of heavy duty vehicles to reduce pressure on the roads. Considering the high capital outlay for road construction and its negative impact in a deficit budget where the 2020 debt servicing cost is more than allocation to capital projects, we urge President Muhammadu Buhari to give urgent assent to the Road Fund Bill already passed by the 8th National Assembly as a source of extra-budgetary funding of roads.
A second experiment at operating toll plazas must avoid the mistakes of the past, which arose mainly from corrupt practices and lack of monitoring of toll plaza operators. We, therefore, call on relevant National Assembly committees to be alive to and transparent in their oversight functions to ensure that when eventually the toll plazas are reintroduced, the operators are made accountable.
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